Smashing a glass item can be traumatic, and dangerous, too,—especially since small shards of glass can fly to the most remote areas of the room. It may be impossible to remove every small shard of glass with your fingers safely as small, razor-sharp edges can cut your fingers or embed in them. Instead, use a piece of bread to safely collect the slivers of glass.

Steps

1

Calm yourself. It is easy to get excited when there is an accident and glass shatters. Your adrenal system kicks in automatically and the tendency is to rush around. Resist that urge and calmly assess the situation.

2

Don shoes or other protective footwear. If you are already wearing shoes, be aware that there might be nearly invisible pieces of glass on top of your shoes. You should probably brush off the shoes with a whisk broom, broom, or similar brush sometime during the clean-up process or vacuum them thoroughly. Don't forget to do this or there is a possibility that you will be injured when later handling the shoes.

If you are shoeless when the glass breaks, resist the urge to tiptoe where you think there is no glass. Instead, call for someone to bring you your shoes or use items that are within reach to pad each footstep along your exit path. You will need, for example, two sections of the newspaper, a couple of books, or some similar items. You will need at least two items, but they do not need to be the same.

3

Remove the visible glass. First pick up the big pieces by hand (protected by gloves) and dispose of them. Then, sweep or vacuum as many pieces of glass as possible. The goal is to get as much off the floor or area as possible without injuring yourself.

Make sure to dispose of the glass fragment in a way that will not injure others if the trash is pushed down by hand. You could take them outside to your trash bin and remove a bag or two of trash, throw the pieces in and cover with the bags. Alternatively you could place the glass pieces in a box or along the vertical sides of the trash bin.

4

Take a piece of bread from your loaf. You may need to use more than one piece depending upon the amount of glass that is be scattered in the room/area.

5

Press the bread down in area where you see (or could have) glass. Sometimes small glass shards are not visible to the naked eye, so consider just pressing bread down in an expanding circle until you have cover the entire area.

Firm downward pressure should be sufficient.

6

Inspect backside of the bread for glass shards periodically. If you see glass on the bread, dispose of that piece.

7

Repeat the steps as needed. Remove another piece of bread and press it down in the area surrounding the place where the glass shattered.